Arrest warrants for Chalabi and judge leading Saddam case

10.00am

BAGHDAD - A US-appointed Iraqi judge has issued an arrest warrant for leading Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi and his nephew, who is heading the tribunal trying former President Saddam Hussein.

Chalabi, a former darling of the Pentagon who helped lead the United States into war in Iraq, said on Sunday he would fight the charges against him which he described as outrageous.

Zuhair al-Maliki, chief investigative judge of the Central Criminal Court of Iraq, said an arrest warrant had been issued against Ahmad Chalabi in connection with counterfeiting money and against Salem Chalabi on murder charges.

Ahmad Chalabi, a former head of Iraq's previous Governing Council, said he and his nephew had only heard of the charges through the media and that they were politically motivated.

"There is no case here and I will go to meet those charges head on ...," he told CNN, speaking from Tehran.

"I have been fighting Saddam for many years and we survived that and we are certainly not going to be intimidated by this judge ..."

He said he had "grave reservations" about the court, but added: "Nobody is above the law and I am certainly not."

The former exile is the head of the Iraqi National Congress and was once seen as a potential Iraqi leader. But he has fallen from favour in recent months, spurned by Washington and many in the new Iraqi government.

Salem Chalabi, a lawyer, is leading the work of the Iraqi Special Tribunal which will try Saddam Hussein, caught last year by US troops.

He told CNN the charges appeared to be very strange.

"The one against my uncle seems very weird because it has to do with counterfeit money and I was told that when they raided his house a couple of months ago they found the equivalent of a few dollars in counterfeit dollars that he was given as head of the financial committee of the governing council," he said.

"The warrant for me has to do with the fact that apparently I threatened somebody, I have no recollection of ever meeting that person, but apparently I threatened somebody who subsequently was killed ...."

Ahmad Chalabi fell out with Washington over accusations he provided faulty intelligence over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capability.

Officials in Washington have also said he is being investigated for leaking secrets to Iran.

Chalabi has turned his attention to building a new support base among Iraq's Shi'ite Muslim majority, persecuted under Saddam and still among the poorest in Iraqi society.

He was convicted in absentia of bank fraud in 1992 by a military court in Jordan, where he had founded a bank that failed. He says the charges were politically motivated.


- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq